Neil T. Schultz

Class of 2013

Harvard

Neil T. Schultz was born in Carthage, Illinois on December 11, 1956. The family moved when he was only one month old and he has called the Harvard area home ever since then. He attended Harvard schools growing up where he participated in numerous activities including the band, chorus and theater productions. He was a member of the student council and was elected vice president in his senior year. He was also a three sport athlete for the Hornets and was named a captain of the football, wrestling and the track team in his senior season.

Two IWCOA Hall of Fame coaches, Richard Holtfreter and John Sciacca, who had a tremendous influence on his life, coached Schultz at Harvard and he graduated with honors in 1975. He then attended Carthage College (Kenosha, WI.) as a member of the football and wrestling teams.

Schultz began officiating junior high and high school wrestling in Wisconsin and Illinois during his senior year while student teaching. He graduated with honors from Carthage College in 1979 with degrees in Elementary Education and Special Education.

Neil began his coaching career before his college graduation in the spring of 1979 at McKinley Jr. High (Kenosha, WI) as the boy’s assistant track coach. The following fall he began teaching while coaching football and track at Tremper High School. As a varsity assistant coach, the Tremper Trojan football team won two WIAA state championships with consecutive undefeated seasons. In his second year at Tremper he was also named the head wrestling coach. In his only season as a head coach he compiled a 14-0 record. After his three years of coaching and teaching in Kenosha he moved back to Harvard to work in his father’s business and to start a family with his wife Marla.

In 1983, Neil returned to coaching as the Harvard High assistant freshman football coach. The following year he moved to the varsity with newly named head coach IWCOA Hall of Famer Tim Haak. That year he also coached wrestling at Harvard Junior High. Then in 1985 he started to assist Coach Haak not only in football but also wrestling at the high school. The two coached together in both sports for the next 20 years. Following the 2006 wrestling season, he retired from coaching in order to follow his son Tyler’s college music career and his son Adam’s college athletic career. Then in 2010 he was given the opportunity to return to coach at Harvard with his son David, as an assistant football coach.

During his tenure as an assistant coach at Harvard, the program has had great success, qualifying for the dual team state tournament 9 times including a third place finish, two second places, and the 1992 State Championship. Schultz was twice named the assistant coach of the year by the IWCOA, 1990 and 2006. He has been a member of the Harvard Wrestling Club board of directors and has been very active in running the several tournaments that Harvard hosts each year. The Junior Varsity tournament in Harvard, a tournament in which he has managed, coached and participated in, has been named in his honor.

In 2009, Schultz was inducted into the Harvard High School – Hall of Fame for his coaching, volunteer efforts and financial support of Harvard athletics.

He is now the president of Acro-Magnetics, Inc., a position he has held for the past ten years.